


The Damage Is Done

by BluntBetty



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Best Friends, Character Study, Childhood, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional, Emotional Baggage, Family, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluntBetty/pseuds/BluntBetty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penny comes to the realization of what really ties their circle of friends together. Character drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We Are Broken

Nearly six years of living in Pasadena has opened up Penny's eyes.

 

She thought she was tough and street smart and cheeky in Nebraska, but that was child's play compared to the real world, away from her cozy familiarity of homespun Midwestern cliches and those occasional meth lab busts. In California, blondes were a dime a dozen and that girl next door look only got her so far. In fact, even her more risque outfits and dance moves seemed overdone in an area where everything _really had been_ done already and creativity was just putting a new face on the same old shit.

So one day, sitting in her apartment alone, staring at her blank screened television (they'd cut off her cable, she swore she'd get them to turn it back on when she got paid next week), just thinking about the people she'd met since moving (those both to come and go in a few days, and those who'd stuck around), Penny came to a realization. And it made her want to vomit. That sickening, dreadful crawl up her throat that threatened to spill at any moment.

 

Broken. Irrevocable fucked over. All of them.

 

All of her friends were broken people, hurt and twisted by those they loved, those who they were forced to have in their lives side by side. Then tossed aside when those users had decided they were tired of them or that their toys were _grown up_ and their jobs done. Their words and actions like scars on their brains, changing their thoughts and own beings forever. (Amy had taught her that. At the time, she hadn't quite grasped it all, but once she put it into context, it clicked together like Lego pieces.)

Penny jumped a little at the noise that filled her apartment, echoing in the odd silence. All she heard was her heartbeat. And then the noise again.

Then she realized she was the noise; little sobs, quieter now that her brain caught up with her body. She didn't want Sheldon coming over, checking to see if she had fallen in the shower again, or, god forbid, asking if she was menstruating.

 

So instead, she let her head fall in her hands, and quietly sobbed as her heart broke.

 

Sometimes, she hated how her friends had all made her more aware of everything, including emotions.


	2. Tug of War

The love of a parent for a child is supposed to be a nurturing bond. It's supposed to help the child grow with a healthy mental disposition; after all many mannerisms and ideals are learned. And it's hard, but soon the parent is supposed to ween their child from their constant presence and let them live their own lives. But habits are something that are created over time. And to Penny, Mrs. Wolowitz was a creature of comfort and queen of habits.

As far as Penny was aware, Howard wasn't her son. Howard was Mrs. Wolowitz's helper, someone to take her places, help with things like dressing and bathing when her excessive size got in the way. And the price she paid was cooking, taking him to the dentist, and someone to watch Wheel of Fortune with. And when he affianced Bernadette, she saw green, too. Green with stern expressions and the metallic _ching ching ching_ of coin in the background.

And Howard. Poor Howard just sees his mother, the woman who, by Freudian standards, should be the perfect model for his ideal wife, the kind of woman he should hope to carry on his life with, just sees her as his mother. As the woman who embarrasses him, who cuts his steak, who does his laundry. His mother's spoon fed him everything in his life, raising him to be the perfect helper so that she wouldn't have to lift a finger.

The natural instinct for a son to look for a woman similar to his mother led him to Bernadette, who, while not like Mrs. Wolowitz in most aspects, did have the same shrill tendencies.

But from years of watching her boys, (Penny, at some point early in her friendship with the group, had started thinking of them all as her boys), saw that Howard was incredibly intelligent, despite the other guys' ribbing about him not having a Ph.D. She knew that he resented his mother's presence in his life as an adult, but the horrible dependence she'd instilled in him, the one that had only gotten worse when his father had left when Howard was eleven, kept him from tugging too hard on the invisible leash around his neck. That resentment had clearly stunted and warped his sense of relationships not only in the mother and son aspect, but with any woman in his life. Penny was sure if she hadn't told him to heel early on, he'd have expected similar old world, motherly coddling from her as well.

 

Penny could also see the confusion in his eyes. The conflict raging behind them between his brain and his body.

 

She knew he thought himself a smooth lady's man, before he'd met Bernadette and still so to the day, but she could also see the tender fondness for his best friend. The closeness he shared with Raj was what he needed in a relationship from the start.

And even still today, she saw the raging war. And Penny knew all too well the feeling of a tug-o-war within, one that threatened to rip you in two. She knew Howard was in love with Bernadette, the two of them were great together. But she also knew there was something unspoken between him and Raj.

Penny wasn't sure what it was, but she knew that there were parts of Howard Wolowitz that repulsed her. But she also knew that he had these tender moments of normalcy as well. And she blamed his mother for these being so few and far between. His chasing women and denial of relationship with Raj was the tug-o-war between heart and mind and body, and the overwhelming, confusing urge to get far away from his mother without leaving her side.


	3. Say Anything (Else)

 When Penny had first met Rajesh Koothrappali, he seemed to be the most normal. He had a typical grasp of most pop culture, understood sarcasm, and had a backbone. That one little spot on his otherwise seemingly perfect personality... The whole not talking to girls thing. Which in turn lead to the becoming somewhat of an ass when drunk so that he _could_ talk to pretty girls. (Penny let that bit slide usually, since most men acted the same when on the sauce.)

She knew that his main reason for acting like that when drinking had to do with his family. Some kind of rebellion. Hell, when she was younger, she drank because it gave her the courage to sleep with the guys she liked, which in turn made her think she was a woman (and thus made her father pull his hair out at the thought of his Slugger an actual _female)._ He had six other siblings, and compared to Priya, he was such a pushover. He probably never got the chance to speak his mind when he was home with all over them. Especially when it came to his parents.

His parents who, with one glare, could get him to snap back into place like a guitar string daring to go limp. One threat of cutting him off from his money, and he'd behave like a choir boy. For a few days, at least. Kept under the thumb of anyone with authority.

The one thing Raj lacked was confidence. The only spot he had it in his life was in his work in astrophysics, and that was constantly being cut down by Sheldon. His nerdy tendencies and likes must have constantly had him on the defense and the target for teasing from his siblings and exasperation from his parents and other adults before coming to America. And in America, he was laughed at by most for the same things, in addition for his lack of communication skills with women.

Being constantly fed doubt and doses of mocking couldn't have done anything for his psyche, and while Penny would throw the odd “Speak to me, Raj,” his way, she meant it as playful teasing, as opposed to the eye rolls and sharp words others always threw at him.

Of their small group of friends, Penny saw Raj's dented armor still had bright spots. He, unlike the others, seemed to keep himself happy with his work and with pop culture. And of course, his friends.

 

Friends seemed to be one thing he never truly lacked.

 

From the friends he played his own version of Power Rangers with to the boys in 4A, he never really lacked companionship. Even if his companions were a sex hound, a homunculus, and a socially inept super villain.

Penny knew that, despite the bickering that occasionally went on between them, no matter the awkward pauses after realizations and unintended innuendo, that Raj would also have Howard until the very end, too.

 

In whichever way they decided.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I only own my own plots.


End file.
